Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/138

128 Stella equipped Laurel with a dozen new frocks, replenished her own wardrobe, and, stout-heartedly, set forth to new fields and untried country, in search of fresh laurels with which to cover up the dried and dead ones.

That was the beginning of her summer hotel era. In the fall, not even Effie was told, in detail, of the disheartening experiences of the first experiment.

"You can drill forever for oil in some places, but unless oil is there, it won't do you any good," was how Stella briefly summed it up. "Next summer, I'll try the Cape—or the mountains possibly."

Stella didn't go back to the detached house when she returned from Maine. Instead she took two-rooms-and-a-bath in an apartment hotel that had lately been built in a residential section of Milhampton.

The apartment hotel offered her more companionship than the detached house. There would at least be the necessity of getting out of a kimono when you went down to meals. Besides, she could have people to dinner more safely. The invaluable Hedwig, whom Stephen had engaged six years ago, and taught and trained, had left to be married. Stella was afraid to trust a new servant with all the hard-and-fast rules. In an apartment hotel, all you had to do, if anything went wrong, was to shrug and say, "Oh, dear, isn't the service in this place dreadful?"

Moreover, there were social advantages. The King Arthur (that was the name of the new apartment hotel) was to be patronized by what Stella called "the right people." She needed all the